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Shirley Claim Dawson was born on October 29, 1911, the oldest of three girls born to Alice and Joseph Claim. The family lived in Maywood, Illinois and Shirley attended Trinity High School in River Forest where she joined the Art, Chemistry, French and Latin Clubs and played on the volleyball team.
When she was 23 year old in 1935, she married Sterling Dawson, a "motion picture operator" and golf enthusiast who played in golf meets on the North Shore. Shirley herself played in a tournament at the Medinah golf course in 1936 and was one of the “leading qualifiers in the ladies’ play” vying for a special trophy. Sterling (who had a son from an earlier marriage) and Shirley had a daughter who they named Virginia, born in 1942.
Shirley moved to Spring Grove around 1947, at which time she was divorced, and raising Virginia “Ginny” on her own. Shirley quickly became very popular and was an integral part of the community. In 1948 she threw herself a birthday party and entertained 20 friends at the Fox Lake County Club with cards, dancing and lunch.
She opened a restaurant called “Shirley’s Lunch” that stood at the SW corner of Main and Blivin Streets. A short time later she moved to 1921 Main Street, where she turned the first floor of the old undertaker/furniture store into her restaurant. In summers, she organized outdoor movies shown on the side of the hardware store at 1919 Main Street. With movies like the Scarlet Horseman serial playing on the screen, she would deliver the popcorn!
She came up with the idea to purchase the town’s old fire engine to turn into a mobile lunch counter and would serve hot dogs, pop, and ice cream at ball games. On Sundays she would take excited neighborhood kids for rides down Main Street.
In 1949, Ginny had her first communion, and life revolved around friends, community, and church. Shirley moved the restaurant one more time to the old bank building at 1927 Main Street with a candy counter that had the greatest assortment of penny candy for the kids.
In 1957 tragedy struck when a devastating car crash at the corner of Route 173 and Wilmot Road resulted in the death of Ginny and another Spring Grove teenager. She was coming home with a group of friends from Wilmot and was only 15 years old. The nuns at St. Peter’s helped Shirley through this heartbreaking time with long talks in the convent over shared bottles of beer.
In 1961, Shirley closed the restaurant and took a position as House Mother at the Lake Shore Campus of Loyola University in Chicago, overseeing 40 girls. She eventually came back to Spring Grove and enjoyed life once again. In 1976 she and long-time resident Joan May Popelka started the Spring Grove Ladies Golf Day, which is still going strong 40 years later. Shirley was a great friend of Joan’s family and was thrilled to be asked to become the adopted grandmother to her young daughters, Krissy and Kelly, after their own grandma passed away.
Shirley died at home in the Colemar subdivision at age 83 in 1993. As one last parting gift, she donated her body to science. When her remains were returned, she was buried next to her daughter in St. Peter’s Cemetery. And 30 years later, those who knew her, still talk about her with admiration and love.
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